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Playing InterActual DVDs Under Linux?
marat asks: "This Thursday our HMV store had (what I thought was) some kind of sale of well-know DVD titles starting from $5 a piece, however after I brought about $200 of them home I discovered that Kaffeine (xine frontend) refuses to play them. Closer inspection revealed small 'Please use with DVD video player' notice on each cover. More elaborate piece of paper enclosed -inside- stated that I have to download and install something called 'InterActual Player' if I want to watch this disk on the PC or Mac. The disks have the 'DVD video' symbol on them, and I don't have any other DVD player nor TV set at home, nor place to put it. Besides, I prefer my 19" monitor anyways. I didn't find the solution myself, that's why I'm asking the Slashdot crowd two questions: How can I play this stuff under Linux? What should I do if they refuse to accept opened cases back? (for semi-legal advice, please take into account that I'm in Tokyo)."
"I've also learned that:"
- Linux is not even mentioned on their site
- It looks like this piece of software is not even free
- Some people believe it is spyware and, finally...
- There are numerous problems making it work."
But have you tried "mplayer" ?
spend it on a tight asian cat? O_o
People who have no sig are cool
... Try ogle.
On gentoo emerge ogle-gui.
I've played Interactual dvds with it just fine.
I use it for every DVD, and it doesn't even as much as garble an error message for my Shrek dvd (interactual enabled!)
give that a shot and then email me if nothing seems to work.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Really, what you need is the libdvdcss2 package, the piece of code that made DVD Jon famous. Install that, and you really should be able to play those DVDs in any player you want.
The easiest way to get them, from my experience, is to download and compile MPlayer from source, but if you use Debian or Ubuntu, it's apt-gettable.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
The InterActual player has absolutely nothing to do with the DVD's content, other than to allow otherwise software-deprived windows users to view the disk. An InterActual DVD is just like any other css-disabled disk.
Spyware? Maybe. Annoying? Definately.
MPlayer, Ogle, Xine, all should work as long as they're built against libdvdcss or similar.
I've learned if nothing else works vlc will just work fine.
It's missing some usability but it has all the codecs built-in and it actually played everything i didn't get to work with others (on windows as well as linux).
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Well, I'm assuming there's a "video_ts" directory on the disc, so it should be standard DVD spec. Just try MPlayer. It's played every DVD I've thrown at it, ever. You'll have to compile it from source, but it's worth it.
Well, I'm going to assume that Japan has similar laws to the US, as far as consumer protection. They cannot sell you something that isn't what it claims to be. I.E. if they sell you a Standard Definition TV, and the box says it's High Definition, you are allowed to return it. I'm also going to assume that this place allows you to return defective discs.
As far as I'm aware, the only discs that can legally bear the DVD Video logo are those that are true DVD spec. If these discs aren't DVD spec, then pretty much say that these discs aren't what they claim to be, or are defective.
- Linux is not even mentioned on their site
Yeah, they don't have any Linux support.- It looks like this piece of software is not even free
It is free.- Some people believe it is spyware and, finally...
It's not spyware, but it is hard to get rid of on Windows systems (pretty easy on Macs though)- There are numerous problems making it work.
It is kinda buggy.The InterActual player is just an over glorified DVD playing program, there's really very little about it that's special, and I can't think of a single reason you'd need it.
Rawr
Marat, I'm sorry this comment is not going to help you much, I'll just address the slashdot crowd..
When is "enough" going to be "enough"? Despite DVD logo's and all that, there's a load of problems playing this crap since they want to control you.
The only thing left to do is to stop buying any DVD or CD until the industry grows up.
And let them know. Loudly.
As others mentioned, pretty much any Linux-based DVD player will treat an InterActual disc like any other DVD if the player is set up properly.
:)
I agree with the other posters that seem to think you haven't installed a CSS library.
In addition to the previously mentioned players, xine is my personal favorite.
It's no wonder their website doesn't mention Linux at all, considering there is only one 100% legal Linux DVD player, and you can only obtain it with one of two no-name commercial distros. (I forget which two...) That said, while libdvdcss isn't technically legal in the U.S., everyone uses it.
BTW, thank you DVD Jon!
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Yeah. What a waste.
You got the touch!
And to think I missed downmodding you by less than 24 hours.
Read this again, the things he says indicate that he did search himself, quite possible even on usenet. Definitely on forums somewhere. Sometimes google doesn't come up with anything. Institutionalized bitching from people who hate "ask slashdot" on principle is easily twice as lame as running to someone else whenever you have a technical problem you can't solve yourself.
"Institutionalized bitching from people who hate "ask slashdot" on principle is easily twice as lame as running to someone else whenever you have a technical problem you can't solve yourself."
r ateeasy/
Like this one.
MSI-K8T-Neo-FSR MB.
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(VIA RAID AMD Chipset)
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---------SATA Seagate ST3200822AS 200GB (Windows 2000. HDA)*
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---------SATA Seagate ST3250823AS 250GB (Linux, HDC)
The first is Master #0, second Master #1
GRUB is on the latter, but Windows will not boot. I have to hit F11 during booting, and select the drive to boot Windows. The other will boot via GRUB till it gets to a problem (I'm working on. Maybe an Initrd problem).
*I recommend Migrate Easy 7.0 for moving W2K from a smaller drive to a larger drive. 15 Day trial, but otherwise not crippled, and it appears to be easier than Ghost.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/mig
Look, I realise you're trying to be fair and all, but he can't plausibly claim to not have at least seen a single online reference to mplayer, css, ogle, vlc or the bloody HOWTOs on the Linux Documentation Project. The DVD-playing HOWTO even flat out tells the reader to go out and get the codecs for encrypted DVD playback! That document is not new, either -- the latest revisions -- never mind when the damn thing came out -- is over a year old now.
Five minutes of proper Googling would have given him enough information to at least be a bit more curious. I'll split hairs here: He says he 'didn't find the answers' himself, and I would argue it's because he really didn't put any effort into looking. Unfair? Maybe.
On reflection, it isn't. Let's assume he doesn't want to fiddle with compiling, or doesn't know how. Nearly every major Linux platform has precompiled binaries for watching DVDs -- granted the provenance of some of these is a little sketchy because of the CSS issue, but, Christ, it is simply not credible that he couldn't figure this out by applying a bit of the grey matter.
In fact, a better AS qn would be, 'You know, I've looked online, but I just can't get my mplayer to compile -- someone please help, I don't wanna reinstall Windows to watch DVDs'. Or 'Is an interActual DVD the same as any other DVD, meaning I must use one of X, Y or Z to watch it?'
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Wikipedia is your friend.
So he sees something scary on the box that hints he won't be able to play it. Googling for it tells him very little, and doesn't assuage any fears that it won't play. All it turns up is references to people using the stupid windows software, and how awful it is.
Find me a single howto that says "if you see interblahblah on the dvd box, ignore it, it's still a standard DVD", then yes, he is an idiot. But having looked through the mplayer docs myself just the other night (my old laptop didn't have a DVD drive, so I never bothered to learn the command line option to play one), I can say that such warnings (anti-warnings) didn't exactly jump out at me.
I mean, for christ's sake. If you people aren't bitching about something that's simple that should have been googlable, then you're complaining that the question is too technical, and that if he's asking it he shouldn't be paid to be doing the job. You can't have it both ways, or there are no "ask slashdot" questions left.
Wouldn't you rather spend it on some fine, tight asian pussy?
But does it run Linux?
Just curious... where do you get your DVD's? How about your CD's? Do you boycott every little thing that upsets you because you refuse to compromise and accept that corporations are out to make a profit, and that they usually don't impose difficult restrictions on our lives? Sure, DRM in general in complete bull, but not from their viewpoint. Hell, even the Sony/BMG music "rootkit" turned out to work in favor of the gaming community, and has plenty of other uses... It all depends on how you look at it. IF you play WoW and have decided you want to either cheat or run a scripted character, you just got a huge bonus. On the other hand, if find virus distribution enjoyable (Those who do: please die.), you just had a free tool handed to you by Sony. I'm tired of people complaining about every little thing that gets in their way. Work around it! This guy had a hard time finding out how to play his legally aquired DVD's on his computer, and asked for help. Sure, Slashdot is wy too big to be asking for help on an issue this small, but the point is that he found a way to fix it, and he's moving on. He doesn't have to boycott an "industry" to prove a point that will never be heard by the corporations, he just had to download a second media player. Problem solved.
I've had an experience or two with women. I can tell you they are way to unstable to be running linux.
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